The Law of Averages

Chapter 28

Abby had decided to continue showing Dan around her family's manor in an entirely transparent attempt to avoid her relatives. She dragged him along by his wrist, down the winding halls of Summers Manor. A happy smile danced along her face as she chattered about old memories of her home. The pair passed a set of double doors leading into a dark room, and Abby gestured grandly.

"And this is our theater. It was... Dad, I think, that had it installed. He was a huge fan of Westerns." Abby tilted her head in reminiscence. "When we were kids, he made Jason and I watch all these movies from the sixties on the big screen. They were basically propaganda pieces at the time, but I guess he grew up with that stuff."

She turned to Dan and asked, "Ever watch any old Westerns?"

"Heh, oh yeah. My parents were big on Clint Eastwood," Dan replied without even thinking about it.

Abby let out a tinkling laugh. "Oh, dad loved the Man With No Name series. A young federal marshal putting down bands of outlaws and vigilantes through superior training and wits? They might as well have just printed money for how successful they were."

That wasn't quite how Dan remembered those movies going. These moments often snuck up on him, the little reminders that he was still far from home. Although...

Abby's smile was radiant as she looped her arm through his. "C'mon, I've got more stuff to show you."

The company here wasn't bad at all.

She led him past the theatre into a large room filled with glass display cases. Photographs, trophies, and embossed documents were arrayed throughout inside each case, with bright lights illuminating every item. The cases was bolted to the floor, and the glass was thicker than Dan's thumb.

"This is the gloating room," Abby announced. She released Dan's arm and gestured dramatically around herself. "This room is where we store the family pride. Records of every major business accomplishment, pictures of every time a family member has rubbed shoulders with a celebrity or politician, every collector's item that you could think of, we keep it all here."

Dan took a brief look at the contents of the nearest display: pictures, large and framed. A middle-aged man, brown-haired and hook-nosed, shook hands with someone who greatly resembled Ronald Reagan. In a different frame, a younger Anastasia Summers stood against an endless blue sky. A towering structure of steel and concrete loomed just behind her. Great waves of smoke billowed just out of frame, emerging from the base of a massive rocket. More pictures lay scattered about the room. A smiling couple bundled in warm furs, standing against a broken and graffitied wall. The same hook-nosed man, looking young and spry and happy, with an arm wrapped around Anastasia and drinking champagne with John F. Kennedy. A group of children, one of which greatly resembled Abigail, sitting at the feet of a well-dressed man who Dan didn't recognize.

There was a great deal of history in this room. Dan should probably show some reverence.

"I expected it to be bigger," Dan snarked with a crooked grin.

"Oh, it extends for about four hundred feet that way." Abby pointed at an unadorned wall. Unlike the rest of the house, no artwork hung on it. Instead, a thin seam ran down its center. Abby skipped over to the wall and gave it a gentle nudge.

The seam split open with a whoosh, revealing a vast dark chamber. A series of low thunks echoed out from the darkness and tiny pinpricks of light appeared in the distance.

Thunk thunk thunk.

Floodlights turned on, one by one, revealing more and more display cases filled with the immeasurable accomplishments and memories of Abigail's family. Concrete pedestals were interspersed among the shelves; thick and elevated, they housed scale models of buildings, vehicle chassis, and in one case, a space rover tinted red and covered in dust.

"Yeah," Abby drawled, keenly aware of Dan's gaping mouth, "we're not a particularly humble family."

"You don't say," Dan remarked absently. His eyes were focused on the cabinet just beyond the threshold. Inside sat a photograph, smaller than the others around it, worn and wrinkled by time and lacking a frame. A young man in casual clothes laughed beside an older man dressed in a suit. Dan could recognize the crooked nose of who he suspected was Abby's grandfather. Beyond that, he recognized the face of the teacher laughing beside him.

A narrow face, with thin lips, large ears, a long nose, and a large forehead. His cheeks were gaunt and sunken, though not unhealthily so. His eyebrows were bushy even then, but his hair was combed back and styled, rather than the wild mess that Dan was used to. The expression on his face was the strangest part, wide and hopeful and warm, his eyes lacked the cold detachment that had come with age.

Dan pointed to the photograph. "What is that from?"

Abby followed his gesture. "No idea. There's so much stuff in here, nobody actually keeps track of it all. Anytime something new is put in, we just slap a label on it."

As she explained, she approached the shelf containing the picture. She swiped her palm against the glass, and with an electric hum, the glass slid open. Abby fished the photo out, frowning slightly at its lack of frame.

"Well that's grandpa," she murmured, peering down at the photo. "I don't recognize the other guy."

She flipped it over, revealing a string of sentences on the back. "Oh. Stanley Summers and Marcus Mercury. 1955."

She turned it back over, a puzzled look on her face. "That's all there is. Way to keep good records grandpa."

Dan snorted. "That's fine. It doesn't matter." Just more questions for Marcus to dodge. Dan would have to find the answers himself.

"Did you recognize one of them?" Abby asked curiously.

"It doesn't matter," Dan repeated, waving his hand dismissively. "I'm sure that a picture is the least impressive thing in here."

She shrugged, placing the photo back inside the shelf. "Probably. I haven't taken a look around for a while, but we've got all kinds of neat stuff. This is where grandpa stashed the old genius upgrade prototypes, way back when."

"Oh my."

"I think there's a flying Sherman tank in here somewhere," Abby added, peering into the hangar sized storage room.

"I need a drink," Dan replied, turning away from the room and its many shinies.

"Oh!" Abby clapped her hands together and the door whooshed shut. "I can help with that!"

"We used to keep a full bar in the house, but some of my relatives are a little too fond of liquor," Abby said as she escorted Dan down the front stairs. The pair had returned to the foyer of the mansion, and their feet hit the first floor right as the front doors flew open.

Both of them flinched as a middle-aged woman wearing a large fur coat pranced into the room. Her long hair was bleached white and a large pair of tinted sunglasses hung off her face. Gaudy jewelry hung off her neck and wrists, even her ankles were wrapped with thick golden bands. Her high heels clicked loudly against the wood floor as she took a stance and spread her arms dramatically.

"Abigail! You've come!" Her voice was even louder than Abby's brother Jason's had been. Her greeting echoed through the foyer, and endless barrage of um um um matching Abby's stuttering reply.

"H—hello Aunt Linda," Abby replied in a daze. She, like Dan, had all but forgotten that there was technically a family reunion happening somewhere deeper within the mansion. Fortunately, the place was large enough that they could dodge the festivities with relative ease. It was only by blundering around near the front door that they were caught.

"Don't Aunt Linda me young lady! I haven't seen you in years! You've gotten so cute!" The blonde woman zipped forward and pinched Abby's cheeks.

"I've been busy," Abby replied with a wince. She batted away her aunt's questing fingers, and took a step back.

"Busy hmm?" The older woman's eyes bounced from Abby to Daniel, then widened. "Oh-hohoho busy!"

Painted on eyebrows waggled disturbingly from behind her massive aviators. Her chortling laughter was grossly exaggerated, like she'd learned how to express herself from a Japanese cartoon.

"Could you not!" Abby pleaded, her face twisting uncomfortably.

"Haha! Look at that pretty blush!" Aunt Linda exclaimed loudly, pointing at Abby's face. Her pale skin remained unflushed, but this didn't seem to deter the older woman in the slightest. She poked Abby's cheek repeatedly, perhaps hoping to elicit some redness through anger rather than embarrassment.

The odd scene made Dan feel incredibly conflicted. On the one hand, interfering in family matters as an outsider was about as socially acceptable as drowning puppies. On the other hand, this lady was being way too handsy! Have some concept of personal space, crazy woman!

"Whiling away your days on such lewd activities, sigh, you're squandering your potential Abigail," Linda continued, actually verbalizing the word 'sigh' rather than performing the action.

Abby's face finally flushed with anger. "I'm perfectly happy with what I'm doing."

"Humph!" Her aunt snorted delicately. "Our family was not meant for Blue-Collar work. Laboring on your hands and knees next to sweaty men and women, humph!"

Abby blinked, taken aback. Her voice was filled with confusion. "What is it exactly that you think I do, Aunt Linda?"

The older woman clapped both hands on Abby's cheeks and pulled her close. "It doesn't matter, dear. It's not right for you. You belong here with us, among the clouds."

And that was Dan's limit. He stepped forward, smoothly slotting himself in-between Abby and her Aunt. His head came up between the woman's extended arms, and he flashed his broadest smile at her.

"Hello there, I'm Abby's friend Daniel Newman! You must be Aunt Linda!" Dan wrapped his hand around the woman's still extended elbow and moved it up and down. "Abby has told me so much about you."

And she had, to the tune of "I really hope she isn't there."

The older woman took Dan's interruption in stride. She released Abby, who immediately darted backwards a step, and curtsied at Dan. With a brilliant smile, she proclaimed, "Wonderful! I'm so glad to meet Abigail's special friend." More eyebrow waggling followed her statement. The two painted caterpillars on her brow danced to a silent Macarena.

"It's really not like that," Dan stated through gritted teeth.

"Kids these days are really too cute," the woman continued. "I remember when I was her age I had a boytoy or three to occupy my time, but,"—Her voice rose as she spoke loudly past Dan's shoulder— "I never let them distract me from advancing myself."

"She's doing fine on that account," Dan said, pushing down his mounting irritation.

"You don't have to defend her, dear. A tasty morsel like you? She'll keep you around for a while, I guarantee it." The woman ran her lascivious gaze down Dan's body.

He couldn't stop the violent tremor that passed through him.

"Just don't get too attached," the older woman continued to advise him in a manner of a professor dispensing wisdom. "A Summers woman has very high standards for permanent companionship. When she casts you aside for someone better suited, come and find me. I'm sure we can come to a side arrangem— Oh, hello Jason dear!"

The manic woman waved her arm wildly back and forth at a distant target. Without pause, she slipped past Daniel and crashed into Abby's unfortunate brother, who had just appeared. Daniel spun on his heel to follow her movements and winced in sympathy at the look of deeply repressed misery on Jason's face. Aunt Linda pulled mercilessly at his cheeks, and the younger man stoically bore the humiliation.

Dan vomited into his mouth, just a little bit.

Something tugged lightly at the back of his shirt.

"Let's get out of here while they're distracted." Abby's quiet voice tickled at his ear.

He spun to face her, and she quickly interposed him between herself and her relatives. She smiled sheepishly. "Jason's probably looking for me."

"Again?" Dan asked. He widened his stance marginally, hoping to conceal Abby further. Her brother hadn't even paid him a glance, before. Dan doubted that would change now.

Abby took a slight step forward, twirling her hand through her hair. "He's the same as the rest of them. Always talking about responsibilities. Whenever I come to one of these reunions Jason preaches to me about family and duty, but in reality he just needs me to run hundred different errands for him. He wasn't like this when we were young— "

She stopped abruptly, then took a tremulous breath. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the family, but, if you don't mind... let's just avoid Jason for a little while longer."

"It's a big mansion," Dan commented idly.

"Everyone is probably gathered at the first floor party room," Abby mumbled with a shrug. "There's another set of stairs we can take, so let's just do that."

She began to drag him back to the second floor as Aunt Linda loudly gesticulated in Jason's face. The young businessman's expression was pained, but he seemed unwilling to simply walk away from his older relative.

Family was an odd thing for Daniel. His own had been small, with no aunts or uncles to speak of. His parents, though loving and supportive, had passed away a few years ago. It was an old pain, and one that he actively avoided thinking about. He had forgotten what it was like to have to deal with a person just because they were family.

How strange, to find a trait he might actually admire in this overbearing older brother. Regardless of his temperament or behavior, Jason Summers seemed to truly love his family. He seemed to truly love his sister, and want what was best for her.

"They judge me," Abby had admitted while they shopped for Dan's suit. "Because I want to work below my status and station. Because I don't care about the family business. Because wealth and power are just words to me. Because all I really want is to live a happy life.

"They judge me as broken, and have never stopped trying to fix me."

But Jason Summers was not Dan's friend. Jason Summers was not why he was here. Dan was here for Abby, and everything else was so far down the list that it didn't even bear mentioning. Dan didn't care about her family or their circumstances. He didn't care how long it had been since they had seen her last, or their love or their worry or their good intentions.

All he cared about was that she had a good day, one that she could look back on and smile at. There was clearly some happiness to be found in this old mansion for her. Her earlier nostalgia was proof enough of that. But there was no happiness to be found in a crowd of well-meaning Summers.

They reached the second floor once again, and Abby opened a new door.

"We can go through here," Abby murmured morosely, giving the unadorned hallway an unenthusiastic wave.

Daniel caught her arm as she tried to walk further forward. She glanced at him, her eyes dull and resigned.

"It's a big mansion," Dan repeated, jerking his head away from the hallway. "Let's go get lost in it."

His words took a moment to settle. For a brief instant, he worried that her mood had plummeted irreparably.

But then the light returned to her eyes and her smile blazed back onto her lips and Dan knew that he had made the right choice.

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